F95 AUTOMATON STORY DRIVER

Although our ability to comprehend interactions between human pressures and evaluate their cumulative effects is improving, managerial response still mostly relies on sectoral approaches. Evaluation of the cumulative effects is essential to successful ecosystem-based management (e.g., ).

Multiple human-induced pressures, which vary across Earth’s oceans, interact in complex and often non-linear ways. Many studies have documented human-mediated introductions of non-indigenous species (NIS), yet only relatively recently NIS have been recognized as a major threat that may cause significant changes in the structure and function of marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are affected by several well-known human-induced global pressures, such as exploitation of living resources, land-based pollution, eutrophication, physical destruction and climate change (e.g., ). Integrated, multi-vector management within an ecosystem-based marine management context is urgently needed to address the complex interactions of natural and human pressures that drive invasions in marine ecosystems. These high-profile invasions led to policy documents and strategies to reduce the introduction and spread of non-indigenous species, although with significant time lags and limited success and focused on only a subset of transfer mechanisms.

Beginning in the second half of the 20 th century, several conspicuous non-indigenous species outbreaks with strong environmental, economic, and public health impacts raised widespread concerns and initiated shifts in public and scientific perceptions. Early (until the mid-1900s) marine bioinvasions were given little attention, and in a number of cases actively and routinely facilitated. We provide a synopsis of key historical milestones for marine bioinvasions, including timelines of (a) discovery and understanding of the invasion process, focusing on transfer mechanisms and outcomes, (b) methodologies used for detection and monitoring, (c) approaches to ecological impacts research, and (d) management and policy responses.

F95 AUTOMATON STORY DRIVER

The human-mediated introduction of marine non-indigenous species is a centuries- if not millennia-old phenomenon, but was only recently acknowledged as a potent driver of change in the sea.

F95 automaton story